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My guess is it is a selling gimmick.....Fuel prices have caused the sale of SUV's to slide and so a little twist like that could make it appealing to the family guy locked into needing something that he can transport the wife and rug rats in most of the time......mama won't let him by a new Mustang......so he can get a bit of thrust out of his SUV and it helps satisfy the primal urges.
Most of the SUV's, heck new 4x4's period, are crap anyways. When you get into serious 4 wheeling they fall apart........however 98 % of them spend most of their lives on the highway and 4x4 is engaged for a toodle down a muddy country road or when it snows, so the design and features are aimed at the biggest percentage of the market, not the handful that actually need a tough off road vehicle.
All you have to do is look at the designs and the materials in the bumper areas of the front ends....first things to get pulverized when easing through a deep dip in a trail......
Chev trucks with unprotected brake lines that get pulverized on gravel roads are another example (no shrouds).....Fords 1 ton 4x4's with the stearing stabilizer under the front arms where it immediately gets trashed going through rough ground, plastic fender liners on 4x4 dually's that fall out when they get a bunch of mud stuck on them and rip the bottom of the glass dually fender off.............they are all designed for road warriors now adays.
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